plan of their streets seems to have been copied from the cow-paths of primitive times.

We have no fault to find with the streets of Dayton. They are wide, presenting a pleasant contrast to the narrow streets of our eastern cities. In no place have we seen a finer architectural taste in the construction of private residences. The most of them are surrounded by large ornamented lawns. When will our Pennsylvanians learn to appreciate the healthfulness and beauty of a front yard? Our cities lose half their beauty by the pertinacious habit of building private dwellings square up against the street. If some people must needs live in towns, they had better import as much of the country as possible, in the form of private parks, shrubbery and shaded walks.

"What a grand result of Christian civilization are such institutions," remarked a friend, as we approached the extensive Lunatic Asylum, about a mile from Dayton. You find them nowhere outside of Christendom. The whole building, with the wings now in the course of erection, will be 800 feet in length. The apartments are conveniently arranged, and well furnished. A home-like air of comfort pervades the whole establishment. The tidy, neat appearance of the bed-rooms, carpeted halls and parlors, and boarding arrangements, little indicate that they are occupied by the insane. The bulk of the inmates not only succumb to their confining fate, but seem to feel cozily at home. Many of the females are engaged in sewing, knitting or reading.

"Won't you entertain the gentlemen with music?" said our friend, Dr. Gundry, the gentlemanly Steward of the establishment, to a lady. "Certainly, sir, I will try," was the reply. She took her place at the piano, and sang in a soft, plaintive tone of voice: "Do they miss me at home?" It was a touching scene, the performance of this insane woman. Surely there were those somewhere, some brother or sister, husband or child, who love her, whose hearts are filled with sadness; who miss her at home, and missing her, weep.

At the invitation of the Steward, several members of the Synod held religious services in the hall of the Asylum, on Sunday afternoon. Dr. Harbaugh preached on Rev. 22: 17. A large number of the inmates were present. One of them led the praise on a cabinet organ, and many had their hymn-books, and devoutly joined in the hymns. With a few exceptions, they were as attentive and decorous as the average congregations of sane people, and more so than some who are ordinarily not classed with crazy people.

Among the inmates are two ministers-a Reformed Presbyterian and a Methodist. The former, known by the soubriquet of father Miller, is a venerable personage, with a long gray beard and patriarchial mien. He is a man of learning, reading his Greek Testament every day. Occasionally he holds service, when he plunges into the abstruse speculations of Scotch Presbyterian Theology. When his Methodist brother preaches his Arminianism, he sometimes publicly protests against his heresies. Both converse rationally on most subjects, and have been faithful laborers in Christ's vineyard, during their earlier life.

The Daytonians are proud of their city. They have so much reason for it, that we feel disposed to indulge them in this weakness. Besides, they have such a free-and-easy, whole-souled way of taking you captive with

their hospitality, that you are converted to their view of the matter in spite of your determination to think otherwise. If it is true that

"In leaving even the most unpleasant people
And places, one keeps looking at the steeple !"

much more when the people you are leaving are pleasant.

The vast consumption of bituminous coal, in the western cities, converts heaven and earth into one vast blacksmith shop. Dayton is bad enough. But Pittsburg! In passing through this city, we heard Theodore Tilton, of the New York Independent, on Reconstruction. He claimed a vote for black men, "even for the people of Pittsburg." The sturdy Pittsburghers present, clapped lustily over this joke at their expense. This ubiquity of soot is the bane of the West. Right glad are we that something, too, can be said for the East. It has less dash and enterprise than the West, but a more healthful growth. It is more in haste than in a hurry. It has Anthracite coal, mountains of mineral wealth, thrifty farmers, large barns. In education and religion it is less swift, but more solid than the West. Both are good and great. Each needs the other.

There are joys and sunshines, sorrows and fears,
That check the path of life's April hours,
And a longing wish for the coming years,

That hope ever wreathes with the fairest flowers;
There are friendships guileless-loves as bright
And pure as the stars in the halls of night.

There are ashen memories, bitter pain,

And buried hopes and a broken vow,
And an aching heart by the restless main,

And the sea breeze fanning a pallid brow;
And a wanderer on the shell-lined shore,
Listening for voices that speak no more.

There are passions strong and ambitions wild,
And the fierce desire to stand in the van
Of the battle of life-and the heart of the child
Is crushed in the breast of the struggling man;
But short the regrets and few are the tears
That fall at the tomb of the vanished years.

There's quiet, and peace, and domestic love,
And joys arising from faith and truth,
And a love unquestioning, far above

The passionate dreamings of ardent youth;
And kisses of children on lip and cheek,

And the parent's bliss which no tongue can speak.

There are loved ones lost! There are little graves
In the distant dell, 'neath protecting tears,
Where the streamlet winds, and the violet waves,
And grasses sway to the sighing breeze;
And we mourn for the pressure of tender lips,

And the light of the eyes darkened in death's eclipse.

And thus, as the glow of daylight dies,

And the night's first look to the earth is cast,

I gaze 'neath those beautiful summer skies,

And the pictures that hang out the hall of the past,

Of sorrow and joy chant a mingled lay,

When to memory's wild wood we wander away.

AT THE MERCY SEAT.

SEE FRONTISPIECE.

The light on our study table has a heavy shade. On it, scenes of homelife are moulded. The light within, especially on these wintry evenings, beautifully brings out the forms and features of these pictures.

One of them is a mother, seated at a table. On its centre is a large bowl, with soup, and a ladle in it. Aside of this, on the corner, is a smaller bowl. On this the mother's hand is placed. Before her, leaning against the table, stands a little girl, about three years old. She stands on a chair. On its back hangs her warm woollen coat. On another chair aside of her, sits a little lap dog, with a string tied around his neck, looking lovingly up into the face of his little friend. In her folded hands, resting on the bowl, the little girl holds a spoon-a wooden spoon. She closes her eyes, bows her head, towards her mother and the meal, and prays over both. She is a dear little thing. And the mother, looking into her round ruddy face, seems to know it. And the little dog, too; for even he seems to feel that he is safer and happier, in a house where the people pray. The frontispiece of this No. of the Guardian gives another view of the

scene.

It comes later in life. The little one has grown up to woman

hood.

But the God of the mother continues to be the God of the childof the daughter. Wordsworth beautifully says:

"The child is father to the man."

The

She

And with equal truth we may add, the child is mother to the woman.
engraving gives us a peep into a sacred chamber-a closet. The open
hearth, the tongs leaning against it, the lighted candle on the mantle,
remind us that it is a chamber of the olden time, undisturbed by gas-
lights, registers and coal-stoves. The paper, inkstand with the pen in it,
and-an Album, is it? are on the table.
And the Album is open.
has been writing-this praying one-with the picture of some parent,
lover, or friend, false or departed, before her. And now, in the hush of
night, when the hum of the busy world has stopped, and its toilers are
asleep, and the memory of friends human and of the Friend divine, crowd
upon her, and an unseen, unheard presence pervades her quiet closet, she
seeks relief for her burdened heart, in prayer:

"Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me:
Still all my song shall be,

Nearer, my God, to Thee-nearer to Thee.
Though like a wanderer, the sun gone down,
Darkness comes over me, my rest a stone:
Yet in my dreams I'd be

Near, my God, to Thee-nearer to Thee.

It must be late. The taper on the mantle is fast burning into its socket. She seeks a place, aside of her suffering Saviour, who prayed the whole night through, on the mountain. He knows what is in the Album, and in her heart. "He carries all our griefs." The devout face and posture speak more than we can here tell. This is a holy place. It almost seems irreverent to gaze long upon it. It is a "closet," and that is a secret place, where the penitent soul and God meet by themselves. Sacred to us be our closet. Seek often to be alone with God. There none but angels witness your wrestling. And they will join you. Then will

“I AM A MISSIONARY, TOO.”

It was said when the late Commodore Foote was in Siam, he had, upon one occasion, the King on board his vessel as a guest. Like a Christian man, as he was, he did not hesitate in the royal presence to ask a blessing, as the guests took their places at the table.

"Why, that is just as the missionaries do," remarked the King, with some surprise.

"Yes," answered the heroic sailor; "and I am a missionary, too." There is a most important lesson of Christian devotion and consistency in such an example.

A NEW YEAR'S DAY IN ROME.

1

BY THE EDITOR.

dark

It was midnight in Rome. In the via di Maria di Fiori, a narrow, street, near the Piazza di Spagna, myself and a Polish friend stood at the door of a private dwelling. We spoke in a half-whisper. For this part of the city was then haunted with frightful rumors. An American traveller was said to have recently been killed for his money. Besides, the Roman gens d'armes are always at one's heels, after night. And, once they have you in their damp dungeons, it will be easy to create a charge against a foreigner. Especially here, where the air is alive with suspicion.

At

Just then the clock, on a neighboring tower, struck twelve-the knell of the departed year; and this set half a dozen others a tolling. The Pole quickly grasped my hand, and greeted me with "Ein gluck-seliges neues Jahr." And so we parted. I groped my way up a dark stairway. the top I knocked for entrance. A crazy inmate of the family greeted me with a volley of epithets, such as are usually applied to Roman thieves and burglars. Every third word seemed to be "Diabolus." This noise brought a sane person to the door, and I was admitted to my rooms.

For

On an open hearth a fire glowed and crackled. Before it I sat and mused for an hour. Mused over the Diabolus of this crazy woman. surely, since the days of Romulus and Remus, the devil has been a prominent citizen of Rome. I thought of Paul, a prisoner in chains, and of Ignatius, eaten in the Coliseum by lions and tigers "to make a Roman holiday;" and of many others who bore and bled for Christ, in this venerated city.

I stepped to the window to listen to Rome after midnight. The city was all asleep, and silent, save the great clocks, that had just struck twelve, clicking the measure of time. Occasionally the distant rumbling of a cab, on the Corso, was heard. Now and then

"from afar

The watch dog bay'd beyond the Tiber."

Again I returned to my musings before the fire, watching the light playing on the ceiling. Indulging in waking dreams about the old heroes of classic fable, and of Christian faith. The last day of the year had been one of unclouded joy. From the lofty dome of St. Peter's, we looked down upon the Rome that now is, and thought of the Rome that was. "The Seven Hills," the landmarks of ancient and modern Rome, distinctly mapped out the city. On the Forum, too, we looked where ruled and spoke the great of old:—

"The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns."

And the Coliseum, "the gladiator's bloody Circus,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection."